A Ponder

[bcholmes]

Why aren't zombi stories cultural appropriation?

Comments

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

I think they started out as such, and now it's been so long, and they have morphed so much, that they've become something else.

I definitely differentiate between "zombi" and "zombie".

Zombi is Haitian.

Zombie is the other kind. What would we call it? If I say "Caucasion Western" that will offend black zombie movie lovers. "Western Civilization"? Hmmm.

N.

[sabotabby]

Don't zombies exist in a bunch of different cultures?

[bcholmes.livejournal.com]

Do they? If so, that's news to me.

[sabotabby]

Well, there's the Haïtian zombi, but I'm also thinking of the Golem, revenants, and so on. Though they aren't called "zombies."

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

Golems aren't anything like zombies or revenants. They're not built from corpses and they don't have anything to do with the dead.

[sabotabby]

Fair enough. Though shambling people made out of mud are just plain cool, I suppose they have more in common with Frankenstein's monster than zombies.

[cigfran-lwyd.livejournal.com]

i think the answer is: they are, but so what?

dracula is cultural appropriation. does anyone care? not really. the tourism is good for wallachia, and the relevant history is interesting.

this is the post-modern world. "zombies" (as opposed to zombis) are global cultural content.

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

Because it isn't cultural appropriation when I do it.

[the-siobhan.livejournal.com]

If they are two completely different things with the same name, does that count as cultural appropriation?

I think people who get fussed about halloween images of hook-nosed, green skinned witches are silly because those images obviouisly don't have anything to do with modern neo-pagans.

I guess the kicker is that I can afford to think that way because I have the benefit of white western privilege, so negative images of my religion don't impact me negatively in any real sense.

[kat-chan.livejournal.com]

Well, I thought that zombi were West African in origin, brought to Haiti by the slaves imported to there.

But, honestly, how many average people know where zombi stories originate. Appropriation is possible, even in ignorance, though I think that's shades different than knowing appropriation like faux war-chants used by fans of teams named after Native American tribal groups, too.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

Actually, there has been some good academic writing about early zombie films in terms of post-colonial thought, cultural appropriation & fear, etc. Also, the one recent film that comes to mind, The Serpent and the Rainbow.

Romero's living dead aren't really zombies--they're also called ghouls in the film, and they have a large part of vampire in them, as well as plague imagery; sometimes more like Frankenstein's monster. Very complicated & fascinating.

Watch Wall-E Online

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[the_axel]

Whose culture?

To quote Ishtar:
"I will knock down the Gates of the Netherworld,
I will smash the door posts, and leave the doors flat down,
And will let the dead go up to eat the living!
And the dead will outnumber the living!"

IIRC, Voudou zombies are not uncontrollable monsters that want to eat the living, with the kill becoming zombies themselves.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Um, because they're imaginary creatures and won't actually march (or blog) in protest?

More seriously, that's a really good question. There's a boundary somewhere, but where is it? Or is it that they've been appropriated for so long that people don't think about it?

For one very general example, some of the worst offenders are quite recent borrowings that try to add an "exotic" setting for an otherwise ordinary story. (Though wasn't there a cyberpunk story with zombies back in the '80s?)

[sarah-dragon.livejournal.com]

The term zombie in some form originated in Africa and as someone mentioned was brought here. However, the zombie is no more appropriation than the term ghoul is. The terms may have been filtered into other cultures but the idea of the living dead, like the concept of dragons, is something that can be seen in many cultures.

The use of the term Zombie, Zombi, Zonbi, or nzambi are not in any way contributing to some of sort of cultural sponge sucking the life of out Haiti, which is not the real origin of the words OR the spiritual belief in any case.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

I missed this post when it first went up, but heard someone discussing the question. So now I have appropriated your topic (http://wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com/422995.html), but I didn't realize it was yours.